1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an earth-moving vehicle provided with a chassis, with an operating arm that is mobile with respect to the chassis, and with a device for configuring the profile of the vehicle by setting the operating arm in a pre-determined reference position such as to enable circulation of the vehicle on the road.
2. Description of the Background of the Invention
As is known, the operating arm of earth-moving vehicles is of an articulated type, is actuated by a plurality of hydraulic cylinders, and must be configured in a pre-determined reference position when the vehicle circulates on the road, so as to respect the parameters of maximum encumbrance laid down in the highway code (for example, in Germany, the maximum height from the ground of the vehicle must be less than 4 meters (13 feet), whilst in the longitudinal direction of advance of the vehicle the distance of the operating arm from the steering column must be less than 3.5 meters (11.5 feet)).
In order to position the operating arm in such a way as to satisfy these parameters, the driver must actuate the manual controls present in the cab for bringing the rods of the cylinders into a pre-set end-of-travel position, except for one of these cylinders, the rod of which must be set in a pre-defined intermediate position. This cylinder is normally the one that moves the last stretch of the operating arm, i.e., the one that carries the earth-moving member at its end.
In order to position the rod of this cylinder in the pre-defined intermediate position, the driver must visually control the relative displacement of the various portions of the operating arm, but this operating modality is, on the one hand, somewhat inconvenient for the driver who has to maneuver the controls within the cab of the vehicle and, on the other, relatively imprecise, precisely because it depends totally upon the sensitivity of the driver himself.
There is thus felt the need to provide an earth-moving vehicle equipped with a device for configuration of the profile for circulation on the road, which will enable a precise positioning to be obtained irrespective of the sensitivity of the driver and of possible subsequent accidental maneuvers made by the driver himself on the controls present in the cab.
The purpose of the present invention is to provide an earth-moving vehicle equipped with a device for configuration of the profile for circulation on the road, which will enable the need outlined above to be met in a simple and economically advantageous way.